Li Liheng, former head teacher of Alibaba’s famend B2B gross sales drive often known as the “China Provider Iron Military,” has joined robotic leasing platform BotShare as President. He will likely be joined by Wang Mingfeng (Tianxiang)—one other Alibaba veteran beforehand liable for administration coaching below Alibaba’s “Three Axes” management framework—who will function Chief Technique Officer.
BotShare formally launched in December 2025 and disclosed its seed funding spherical on January 15, 2026. The spherical was led by Hillhouse Ventures, with participation from Fosun Capital and different traders. Based on Qichacha information, Agibot (Zhiyuan Robotics) holds a 55% stake in BotShare, whereas Feikuo Expertise owns 15%. Based in 2024, Feikuo focuses on deploying and working robots in real-world eventualities corresponding to cultural tourism, industrial performances, and guided exhibitions.
As a robotic leasing platform, BotShare aggregates robots from a number of manufacturers and fashions, providing leases for eventualities together with company annual conferences, livestreaming, retailer openings, and promotional occasions.
Accessible manufacturers at the moment embody Accelerated Evolution, Unitree, Zhiyuan, Zhongqing, Lingchu Intelligence, and Zhujie Dynamics, amongst others. Robotic supply, retrieval, and upkeep are dealt with by native leasing companions throughout completely different areas.
Platform information exhibits that inside three weeks of launch, BotShare surpassed 200,000 registered customers, with every day rental orders stabilizing at over 200.
Nevertheless, robust early metrics don’t essentially translate right into a sustainable enterprise. Key challenges stay unresolved, together with:
- Whether or not orders are pushed by real repeat demand or short-term subsidies
- standardize cross-city supply, on-site operations, wear-and-tear depreciation, insurance coverage, and legal responsibility allocation
- Whether or not a fragmented nationwide service supplier community could be unified by sufficiently sturdy guidelines and SOPs
These points recommend BotShare is basically an operations-intensive enterprise, somewhat than a purely platform-driven one.
Trade insiders reveal that BotShare might quickly roll out a “Metropolis Companion Program,” recruiting leasing operators nationwide to construct out its distribution and repair community. This transfer aligns with the corporate’s determination to usher in executives skilled in ToB gross sales group constructing and nationwide community scaling.
Public data describe Li Liheng as an early member of Alibaba’s B2B “China Provider” crew, the place he participated in market growth and later led the development of Alibaba’s B2B gross sales coaching and expertise growth methods—credentials intently aligned with the problem of scaling a nationwide service community.
BotShare’s core crew brings collectively expertise from robotics {hardware}, web platforms, and native providers. Jiang Qingsong, companion and co-president of Zhiyuan Robotics, serves as Chairman; Li Yiyan, founding father of Feikuo Expertise, is CEO; former Ele.me vp Chen Yanxia is COO; and Li Kewei, founding father of Miaozhanggui, serves as CMO. The addition of Li and Wang is anticipated to strengthen BotShare’s channel technique and offline community growth.
Supply: 36Kr
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